Google Backtracks: Time to Update Your Meta Descriptions

Whaaaaaat? You mean I have to update 50 squillion meta descriptions?

Yup, indirectly Google is saying with their spangly new 300 character snippets in search, you maybe, probably, could think about updating your meta descriptions to match.

That’s this Christmas sorted then. And the New Year. And quite a bit of Feb.

Read all about it in this extract from the marvellous TWIS SEO News & Updates 15th December 2017 – a bit of essential reading, if you ask me.

#SEO #SEONews #MetaTags #SERP

Key Issues Summary:

• As I talked about recently, Google has lengthened the meta descriptions which appear in search to up to 300 characters, or so.
• Google initially said “no need to elongate your metas chaps!” (Or words to that effect).
• But, John Mueller in a recent Google Webmaster Hangout, while not explicitly saying you should update your meta descriptions intimated that you could, or should, maybe.
• SEOs the world over started rubbing their hands in anticipation at rewriting thousands of meta descriptions…

Key Actions To Take:

1. Get your writing gear on, it’s time to elongate your meta descriptions.
2. (If you were sensible, you were writing decent length ones anyway).
3. Remember to structure them, as per the Basic Meta Tags from my SEO Guides.
4. Finally, remember that you don’t have to update your meta descriptions, but it’s probably a good idea to do so.
5. Click here to contact me to discuss this further.

Insights & Discussion:

Meta descriptions are handy little blighters. Useful for describing the page, enticing the click-through and giving users a good start to their journey on your site.

It never made a lot of sense to slavishly follow the 160 character rule, and now that Google is showing up to 300 or so characters, it makes even less sense.

Generally, sensible rules still apply: describe the page accurately, get a call to action in, use keywords judiciously.

Now “click here to read…”.

More Information:

• H/T SE Roundtable
• John Mueller on YouTube
• My Basic Guide to SEO Meta Tags

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I recently wrote about how Google’s Mobile First is Not Mobile Friendly. Read it now.

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• Last week there was no need to update your meta descriptions, this week there is.
• 300 characters by Friday, please Smithers.
• I can hear the toolsets scrambling to update as I type.
• Read The State of SEO in mid-2017.
• Read about how Google’s Mobile First Index is not Mobile Friendly.
• Finally, get your content ranking well on Google by starting to understand Find Crawl Index.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to discuss what these changes mean for your web property, or would like to know how to implement them, please feel free to contact me.

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